A Terrible Temptation: A Story of To-Day
me. Consider: good advice is like a tight glove; it fits the
circumstances, and it does not fit other circumstances. No man advises
so badly on a false and partial statement as I do, for the very reason
that my advice is a close fit. Even now I can't understand Sir
Charles's despair of having children of his own.”
The writer then turned his looks on the two women, with an entire
absence of expression; the sense of his eyes was turned inward, though
the orbs were directed toward his visitors.
With this lack-luster gaze, and in the tone of thoughtful soliloquy, he
said, “Has Sir Charles Bassett no eyes? and are there women so furtive,
so secret, or so bashful, they do not tell their husbands?”
Lady Bassett turned with a scared look to Mary Wells, and that young
woman showed her usual readiness. She actually came to Mr. Rolfe and
half whispered to him, “If you please, sir, gentlemen are blind, and my
lady she is very bashful; but Sir Charles knows it now; he have known
it a good while; and it was a great comfort to him; he was getting
better, sir, when the villains took him--ever so much better.”
This solution silenced Mr. Rolfe, though it did not quite satisfy him.
He fastened on Mary Wells's last statement. “Now tell me: between the
day when those two doctors got into his apartment and the day of his
capture, how long?”
“About a fortnight.”
“And in that particular fortnight was there a marked improvement?”
“La, yes, sir; was there not, my lady?”
“Indeed there was, sir. He was beginning to take walks with me in the
garden, and rides in an open carriage. He was getting better every day;
and oh, sir, that is what breaks my heart! I was curing my darling so
fast, and now they will do all they can to destroy him. Their not
letting his wife see him terrifies me.”
“I think I can explain that. Now tell me--what time do you expect--a
certain event?”
Lady Bassett blushed and cast a hasty glance at the speaker; but he had
a piece of paper before him, and was preparing to take down her reply,
with the innocent face of a man who had asked a simple and necessary
question in the way of business.
Then Lady Bassett looked at Mary Wells, and this look Mr. Rolfe
surprised, because he himself looked up to see why the lady hesitated.
After an expressive glance between the mistress and maid, the lady
said, almost inaudibly, “More than three months;” and then she blushed
all over.
Mr. Rolfe looked at the two women a moment, and seemed a little puzzled
at their telegraphing each other on such a subject; but he coolly noted
down Lady Bassett's reply on a card about the size of a foolscap sheet,
and then set himself to write on the same card the other facts he had
elicited.
While he was doing this very slowly, with great care and pains, the
lady was eying him like a zoologist studying some new animal. The
simplicity and straightforwardness of his last question won by degrees
upon her judgment and reconciled her to her Inquisitor, the more so as
he was quiet but intense, and his whole soul in her case. She began to
respect his simple straightforwardness, his civility without a grain of
gallantry, and his caution in eliciting all the facts before he would
advise.
After he had written down his synopsis, looking all the time as if his
life depended on its correctness, he leaned back, and his ordinary but
mobile countenance was transfigured into geniality.
“Come,” said he, “grandmamma has pestered you with questions enough;
now you retort--ask me anything--speak your mind: these things should
be attacked in every form, and sifted with every sieve.”
Lady Bassett hesitated a moment, but at last responded to this
invitation.
“Sir, one thing that discourages me cruelly--my solicitor seems so
inferior to Mr. Bassett's. He can think of nothing but objections; and
so he does nothing, and lets us be trampled on: it is his being unable
to cope with Mr. Bassett's solicitor, Mr. Wheeler, that has led me in
my deep distress to trouble you, whom I had not the honor of knowing.”
“I understand your ladyship perfectly. Mr. Oldfield is a respectable
solicitor, and Wheeler is a sharp country practitioner; and--to use my
favorite Americanism--you feel like fighting with a blunt knife against
a sharp one.”
“That is my feeling, sir, and it drives me almost wild sometimes.”
“For your comfort, then, in my earlier litigations--I have had sixteen
lawsuits for myself and other oppressed people--I had often that very
impression; but the result always corrected it. Legal battles are like
other battles: first you have a skirmish or two, and then a great
battle in court. Now sharp attorneys are very apt to win the skirmish
and lose the battle. I see a general of this stamp in Mr. Wheeler, and
you need not fear him much. Of course an antagonist is never to be
despised; but I would rather have Wheeler against you than Oldfield. An
honest man like Oldfield blunders into wisdom, the Lord knows how. Your
Wheelers seldom get beyond cunning; and cunning does not see far enough
to cope with men of real sagacity and forethought in matters so
complicated as this. Oldfield, acting for Bassett, would have pushed
rapidly on to an examination by the court. You would have evaded it,
and put yourself in the wrong; and the inquiry, well urged, might have
been adverse to Sir Charles. Wheeler has taken a more cunning and
violent course--it strikes more terror, does more immediate harm; but
what does it lead to? Very little; and it disarms them of their
sharpest weapon, the immediate inquiry; for we could now delay and
greatly prejudice an inquiry on the very ground of the outrage and
unnecessary violence; and could demand time to get the patient as well
as he was before the outrage. And, indeed, the court is very jealous of
those who begin by going to a judge, and then alter their minds, and
try to dispose of the case themselves. And to make matters worse, here
they do it by straining an Act of Parliament opposed to equity.”
“I wish it may prove so, sir; but, meantime, Mr. Wheeler is active, Mr.
Oldfield is passive. He has not an idea. He is a mere negative.”
“Ah, that is because he is out of his groove. A smattering of law is
not enough here. It wants a smattering of human nature too.”
“Then, sir, would you advise me to part with Mr. Oldfield?”
“No. Why make an enemy? Besides, he is the vehicle of communication
with the other side. You must simply ignore him for a time.”
“But is there nothing I can do, sir? for it is this cruel inactivity
that kills me. Pray advise me--you know all now.”
Mr. Rolfe, thus challenged, begged for a moment's delay.
“Let us be silent a minute,” said he, “and think hard.”
And, to judge by his face, he did think with great intensity.
“Lady Bassett,” said he, very gravely, “I assume that every fact you
and Mr. Angelo have laid before me is true, and no vital part is kept
back. Well, then, your present course is--Delay. Not the weak delay of
those who procrastinate what cannot be avoided; but the wise delay of a
general who can bring up overpowering forces, only give him time.
Understand me, there is more than one game on the cards; but I prefer
the surest. We could begin fighting openly to-morrow; but that would be
risking too much for too little. The law's delay, the insolence of
office, the up-hill and thorny way, would hurt Sir Charles's mind at
present. The apathy, the cruelty, the trickery, the routine, the hot
and cold fits of hope and fear, would poison your blood, and perhaps
lose Sir Charles the heir he pines for. Besides, if we give battle
to-day we fight the heir at law; but in three or four months we may
have him on our side, and trustees appointed by you. By that time, too,
Sir Charles will have got over that abominable capture, and be better
than he was a week ago, constantly soothed and consoled--as he will
be--by the hope of offspring. When the right time comes, that moment we
strike, and with a sledge-hammer. No letters to the commissioners then,
no petitioning Chancery to send a jury into the asylum, stronghold of
prejudice. I will cut your husband in two. Don't be alarmed. I will
merely give him, with your help, an _alter ego,_ who shall effect his
liberation and ruin Richard Bassett--ruin him in damages and costs, and
drive him out of the country, perhaps. Meantime you are not to be a lay
figure, or a mere negative.”
“Oh, sir, I am so glad of that!”
“Far from that: you will act defensively. Mr. Bassett has one chance;
you must be the person to extinguish it. Injudicious treatment in the
asylum might retard Sir Charles's cure; their leeches and their
sedatives, administered by sucking apothecaries, who reason it _a
priori,_ instead of watching the effect of these things on the patient,
might seriously injure your husband, for his disorder is connected with
a weak circulation of blood in the vessels of the brain. We must
therefore guard against that at once. To work, then. Who keeps this
famous asylum?”
“Dr. Suaby.”
“Suaby? I know that name. He has been here, I think. I must look in my
Index rerum et hominum. Suaby? Not down. Try Asyla.--Asyla; 'Suaby: see
letter-book for the year--, p. 368.' An old letter-book. I must go
elsewhere for that.”
He went out, and after some time returned with a folio letter-book.
“Here are two letters to me from Dr. Suaby, detailing his system and
inviting me to spend a week at his asylum. Come, come; Sir Charles is
with a man who does not fear inspection; for at this date I was bitter
against private asylums--rather indiscriminately so, I fear. Stay! he
visited me; I thought so. Here's a description of him: 'A pale,
thoughtful man, with a remarkably mild eye: is against restraint of
lunatics, and against all punishment of them--Quixotically so. Being
cross-examined, declares that if a patient gave him a black eye he
would not let a keeper handle him roughly, being irresponsible.' No
more would I, if I could give him a good licking myself. Please study
these two letters closely; you may get a clew how to deal with the
amiable writer in person.”
“Oh, thank you, Mr. Rolfe,” said Lady Bassett, flushing all over. She
was so transported at having something to do. She quietly devoured the
letters, and after she had read them said a load of fears was now taken
off her mind.
Mr. Rolfe shook his head. “You must not rely on Dr. Suaby too much. In
a prison or an asylum each functionary is important in exact proportion
to his nominal insignificance; and why? Because the greater his nominal
unimportance the more he comes in actual contact with the patient. The
theoretical scale runs thus: 1st. The presiding physician. 2d. The
medical subordinates. 3d. The keepers and nurses. The practical scale
runs thus: 1st. The keepers and nurses. 2d. The medical attendants. 3d.
The presiding physician.”
“I am glad to hear you say so, sir; for when I went to the asylum, and
the medical attendant, Mr. Salter, would not let me see my husband. I
gave his keeper and the nurse a little money to be kind to him in his
confinement.”
“You did! Yet you come here for advice? This is the way: a man
discourses and argues, and by profound reasoning--that is, by what he
thinks profound, and it isn't--arrives at the right thing; and lo! a
woman, with her understanding heart and her hard, good sense, goes and
does that wise thing humbly, without a word. SURSUM CORDA!--_Cheer up,
loving heart!”_ shouted he, like the roar of a lion in ecstasies; “you
have done a masterstroke--without Oldfield, or Rolfe, or any other
man.”
Lady Bassett clasped her hands with joy, and some electric fire seemed
to run through her veins; for she was all sensibilities, and this
sudden triumphant roaring out of strong words was quite new to her, and
carried her away.